Carotid Endarterectomy or Angioplasty

Group of procedures performed by surgeons with similar skills–carotid endarterectomy–open operation to open or remove a blockage in the neck of major blood vessels (carotid arteries) going to the brain; or group of procedures performed by surgeons or other appropriately trained physicians with similar skills–carotid angioplasty--a procedure where a long tube is placed through a leg artery and is passed up to the neck and the blockage of the major neck vessel (carotid artery) is corrected with a balloon and a mesh tube is placed in the blood vessel to keep it open.

Find the best surgeons — Checkbook has identified as having better-than-average outcomes based on analysis of more than four million surgeries done for hospital inpatients by more than 50,000 surgeons.

How Big Are the Differences

Some surgeons' patients have much higher rates of deaths and other bad outcomes than other surgeons'. This shows the percentage of bad outcomes for the best-performing one-tenth of surgeons, the average surgeon, and the worst performing one-tenth of surgeons.